What are the responsibilities and job description for the Principal Network Infrastructure Architect, Physical position at Poolside Infrastructure Company?
About PIC
At PIC we're not just building data centers; we're reimagining how AI infrastructure gets developed, financed, and scaled by combining hyperscale-grade facilities with direct access to energy, land, and fiber at a scope that simply doesn't exist anywhere else. Backed by a best-in-class supply chain, world-class partners, and advanced partnerships with major hyperscale customers, PIC is poised to become a multi-billion dollar platform with ambitions to layer cloud, compute, and advanced manufacturing on top of our energy foundation.
If you want to work at the intersection of AI, energy, and infrastructure at a scale that will shape the next decade of compute, join our team.
About The Role
We are seeking a highly skilled Principal Network Infrastructure Architect to join our team to lead the design of the physical network infrastructure supporting a nextgen hyperscale AI data center serving multiple leading hyperscale tenants. This role focuses on the physical design of backbone connectivity, campus fiber infrastructure, meet-me rooms, and the OT network infrastructure required to support hyper-scale campus operations.
This is a unique chance to build something new from the ground up in a startup environment, where you will play a key role in defining the physical network foundation for the campus. You’ll work side-by-side with construction, operations, engineering, and our major tenants to make sure the campus infrastructure is ready for growth, seamless carrier interconnection, and long-term success.
What You’ll Do
At PIC we're not just building data centers; we're reimagining how AI infrastructure gets developed, financed, and scaled by combining hyperscale-grade facilities with direct access to energy, land, and fiber at a scope that simply doesn't exist anywhere else. Backed by a best-in-class supply chain, world-class partners, and advanced partnerships with major hyperscale customers, PIC is poised to become a multi-billion dollar platform with ambitions to layer cloud, compute, and advanced manufacturing on top of our energy foundation.
If you want to work at the intersection of AI, energy, and infrastructure at a scale that will shape the next decade of compute, join our team.
About The Role
We are seeking a highly skilled Principal Network Infrastructure Architect to join our team to lead the design of the physical network infrastructure supporting a nextgen hyperscale AI data center serving multiple leading hyperscale tenants. This role focuses on the physical design of backbone connectivity, campus fiber infrastructure, meet-me rooms, and the OT network infrastructure required to support hyper-scale campus operations.
This is a unique chance to build something new from the ground up in a startup environment, where you will play a key role in defining the physical network foundation for the campus. You’ll work side-by-side with construction, operations, engineering, and our major tenants to make sure the campus infrastructure is ready for growth, seamless carrier interconnection, and long-term success.
What You’ll Do
- Set the vision and define physical network infrastructure architecture for how backbone, campus IT, and OT connectivity come together to form a robust and reliable network foundation.
- Design campus fiber infrastructure, including pathways, conduit systems, and fiber distribution.
- Translate logical network requirements into scalable fiber plant and structured cabling architectures including MPO/MTP systems, trunk sizing, and cassette hierarchy.
- Define architecture and standards for meet-me rooms (MMR), carrier ingress, and interconnection infrastructure.
- Establish physical design standards for demarcation points, cross-connect infrastructure, and tenant connectivity.
- Define optical connectivity standards, including transceiver selection and link loss budget validation.
- Partner with our hyperscale tenants to understand their needs and make sure the physical network can grow right alongside them.
- Partner with construction, facility engineering, and design teams to integrate network infrastructure into campus planning.
- Define resiliency standards for fiber routing, diverse pathways, and backbone connectivity.
- Establish capacity planning frameworks to support long-term campus expansion and tenant growth.
- Develop physical infrastructure standards for labeling, documentation, and infrastructure lifecycle management for network deployments across the campus.
- Support deployment validation, turn-up, and operational readiness of physical infrastructure.
- Serve as the technical authority for physical network infrastructure design.
- 15 years of experience designing network infrastructure for large campus or data center environments.
- Proven experience designing fiber plant architecture, conduit systems, vaults, and diverse campus fiber pathways.
- Experience designing meet-me room architecture and carrier interconnection infrastructure.
- Experience designing OT network infrastructure supporting facility systems such as BMS, EPMS, or DCIM environments.
- Strong expertise in structured cabling systems and MPO/MTP architectures (Base-8 / Base-12 / Base-16).
- Deep understanding of optical networking and high-speed transceivers (400G / 800G DR4, FR4, LR4, SR).
- Experience modeling and validating fiber loss budgets and optical link performance.
- Proven ability to operate as a hands-on individual contributor, delivering architecture, implementation, and operational support.
- Experience designing infrastructure for hyperscale or colocation data center environments.
- Familiarity with AI or high-performance computing network environments.
- Experience integrating fiber infrastructure with DCIM or infrastructure management systems.
- Experience working with structured cabling vendors such as Corning, CommScope, or Panduit.
- Certifications such as BICSI RCDD or equivalent infrastructure certifications.
- Occasional travel to the data center campus and partner locations.
- Comfortable operating in a hands-on, fast-paced startup environment, taking ownership across design, build, and early operations, and working closely with a small, high-impact team.
- Interview w/Molly Anderson, Senior Manager of People Operations
- Interview w/Senthil Ganesan, Director of Network & Platform Infrastructure
- Interview w/William Gauthier, Director of Critical Facilities
- Interview w/Lance Smith, VP of Data Centers